


So Now I've Crossed the Line

by naegkawa



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Abusive Parents, Child Death, Flashbacks, Gen, I just want them to be friends, Jewish Juno, Juno Steel Needs a Hug, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Other, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, two traumatized assholes bonding over being traumatized assholes, vespa being a doctor and knowing how to help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24469396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naegkawa/pseuds/naegkawa
Summary: Juno Steel and Vespa Ilkay get along together like fire and gasoline: angry and explosive. Despite their better judgment, arguments always go too far.
Relationships: Juno Steel & Vespa (Penumbra Podcast)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 148





	So Now I've Crossed the Line

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is called i have c-ptsd and project onto fictional characters. anyway i do want to warn there is a small amount of described child abuse. it's nothing too graphic but it's there. also juno is jewish but that's also not heavily referenced but it is there.

Juno and Vespa mixed together just about as well as kerosene and a lit match. Every conversation between the two of them went the same way: angry and explosive. Neither of them knew how to walk away from a fight, causing one of the other four members to always have to step in to mediate before things went too far (as they often did, regardless of the mediation). However, given the intricate web of relationships that was the Aurinko crime family, all of their options were flawed. They had:

  * Buddy, who was the most frequent mediator. Being the captain, it was her _job_ to make sure everyone was getting along and, boy, were Juno and Vespa determined to _make her job difficult._ Juno accused Buddy of being biased towards Vespa because _how could you not be biased towards your own wife?_ (Buddy always argued saying that she knows how to be impartial when she puts on her Captain hat)
  * Rita, who Vespa respected as a member of the crew, but refused to listen to her mediate. “You keep just making excuses for Steel!” she would growl.
  * Peter Ransom, who did not even _bother_ to intervene except when physical threats were thrown, which usually caused Vespa to turn those threats onto him.
  * Jet was the most neutral party though, like Ransom, he was unlikely to mediate. His mediation usually came as an order from Buddy after they refused to listen to her. Then, it would usually stop.



They  _ tried  _ so hard to get them to stop going for each other’s throats at every opportunity, but to no avail. Juno and Vespa were so frustratingly similar in the fact that each of them took low blows whenever the situation presented itself. Buddy had talked to both of them several times about it, trying her best to not show her  _ annoyance _ and to keep things professional.

“Juno, darling, Vespa, my love, you need to treat each other with respect,” they could conjure her voice perfectly in their heads. “We are a  _ family  _ after all and, yes, families have their little spats and disagreements but everyone on this ship agrees you have both been taking things too far.”

Then, they would be met with a punishment, or firm warnings, like they were petulant children who had forgotten how to behave and threw tantrums in a grocery store.

Juno, frankly, was surprised Buddy didn’t slap him hard across the face when she overheard him call Vespa, with pure vitriol in his voice, “nothing but the Captain’s bitch”. Hell, he wanted to slap  _ himself  _ after he had said that. He acknowledged he had crossed a serious line and apologized profusely immediately after, but it was just damage control at that point. Neither of them could stop the damage from  _ happening _ and stopping it was an admittance of defeat.

The fight later that night, not even 12 hours after Juno had seen tears well up in Vespa’s eyes, was over something small and stupid in hindsight. Juno had spilled boiling water over his hand, and wanted to help the burn wound from blistering  _ too  _ badly. He just wanted to quietly patch it up, partially because he was too goddamn proud to openly admit to stupidity. This was when Vespa caught him.

“What are you doing, Steel?” she spoke through gritted teeth.

“It’s none of your business,” he snipped back. He just wanted to be  _ left alone  _ so he could treat the burn in peace. The last thing he wanted was Vespa breathing down his neck and making fun of him for getting such a stupid injury.

““I’m the fucking medic around here, everything that  _ happens _ in this room is my business, got it? I need to know what happens here! Someone could be, I don’t know, stealing medication or something or  _ poisoning _ something and it would be my fault for not keeping up with it.”

And there it was. The low blow. Juno wasn’t sure if it was intended or not, but it sure did feel like a punch in the gut. He was the first to raise his voice. “Fuck off! I’m not fucking stealing medication, Vespa! You took my blood! You  _ know  _ I’m clean. I’m your teammate, not some ex-junkie you pulled off the streets.”

“I wasn’t saying you were!” she growled. “It was a hypothetical situation! I know you’ve been clean for years… I can see it on your body, the healing marks from a  _ former  _ addict. It wasn’t a serious accusation. I just want to know what you’re  _ doing  _ here.”

“You’re being overly paranoid,” Juno was still on the defensive. “I just think some things should be left private. I don’t want to share  _ everything  _ I have with everyone.”

“What, got an embarrassing rash, Steel?” she practically spat at him. “What are you looking for?”

“Burn cream!” he screamed, feeling his frustration grow by the second. “I spilled boiling water on my hand and wanted to help it! But fuck it, I’ll just let the blisters get all nice and comfortable— it’d be less painful than dealing with this fucking conversation!”

“I hate it when you do that!” she retorted. “Act all  _ woe-is-me  _ about everything! Poor Juno with his little burnt hand— and the mean, terrible Vespa who yells at him for sneaking around in her infirmary like some kind of  _ little monster _ skulking around in the shadows, like it’s a  _ game  _ to make me paranoid!”

And there it was: the moment the argument crossed a line. Vespa saw right away she had said something she  _ shouldn’t  _ have. A look swept over Steel’s face. One she had never seen him wear before. His eye widened and he took two steps back, as every muscle in his body stiffened. She was a trained medic, she acknowledged what this response was right away. “Steel?” he was still and unresponsive, save for his involuntary trembling and the whimper he let out, tears welling up in his eye. “Steel, can you hear me?”

She knew this response well, the way Juno looked  _ past  _ her with simultaneous fear and distance in his eye, gaze upon some unknown ghost of his past.

To Juno Steel, the voice that echoed those two little words, that called him  _ a little monster, _ was not that of Vespa Ilkay. Vespa’s rasp contorted to a much smoother tone, followed by an all-too-familiar chuckle that filled his stomach with dread. He knew the source of the voice all too well— Sarah Steel. He could picture her face, the deep bags under her eyes showing immense fatigue, the piercing  _ anger  _ in her eye followed by disgust and self-pity. The smell of liquor on her breath. It was Sarah, and every negative emotion and association that came attached to her. Juno had been… dealing with that trauma on and off for twenty years. He had managed to make significant progress recently, after he had his cybernetic eye removed.

But that didn’t make the memories  _ go away.  _ It didn’t erase the scars on his body she left, or the way certain smells and sounds and words made his stomach twist in discomfort. It didn’t dispel the nightmares where he was forced to watch Benten’s death over and over again in futility hurt any less. He could heal, yes, he  _ was  _ healing, but that healing was not linear. He was able to find a little closure, yes, but the trauma still came in waves of potency.

Juno, in trying to cope with the cyclical process of scars opening and reclosing, had compiled a mental list of things he needed to mentally prepare himself for and methods to ground himself. And, for the most part, he had been able to calm himself out of particularly bad PTSD episodes. But this hit him… unexpectedly. It had been  _ years  _ since anyone had called them that, and all of the anxiety in his stomach felt far too real.

He knew how he used to deal with separating himself from things that upset him: he would snap and drive people away. Like a wounded animal backed into a corner, he concealed his wounds and lashed out— felt attacked when someone looked too closely at his scars. That, too, was something he was working on. Nureyev commented on it in their conversations, how this new Juno Steel came to him with wet eyes and wet wounds— didn’t recoil when talking about his emotions. He was  _ healing _ , changing.

This was not one of those times.

Of course he knew the healing process was not linear, and there were bad days where you fell back into bad coping mechanisms and awful habits. Days where it felt like the trauma won. And Juno Steel, feeling like he was a young kid again helpless against his mother’s cruelty, felt himself regress decades. He could  _ feel  _ her eyes digging into him with disgust as he cowered and tugged at his hair. His mind then flashed with images of Sarah twisting her fingers around Juno and Benzaiten’s curls, yanking them to get them both on the floor as she interrogated them and slapped them across the face when she thought they were lying.

Juno tugged his hair again, trying to breathe but only able to manage short, ragged breaths. “I— I— I—” he stammered out helplessly.

“Steel—” Vespa called out to him. “ _ Juno,  _ please. I need you to breathe. Look at me— Focus on me, Juno.”

“My— Ben—” he choked out, the words feeling painful to say. His mother’s voice was echoing around him, ringing in his ears like a high priest telling everyone else to disburse so he could atone. Sarah Steel never sought out atonement and, even if she had, Juno doubted she would ever  _ properly  _ make up for it. No amount of attempted amends or pure mitzvot would make up for the light that went out when Juno found Benten’s corpse. When a star like that burnt out. Her time was spent with blood glistening red on her hands, and Juno spent all of  _ his  _ time for the rest of his life atoning for the weight that knowing he was somewhat responsible for his twin’s death placed on his shoulders.

But he heard Vespa’s voice call out to him again. It was… abnormal, how gentle her tone was. “Juno, it isn’t real. You’re having a flashback,” her voice was the softest he had ever heard it. It was still raspy, but that growling aggression had faded entirely. “I need you to breathe with me, okay?”

The two of them breathed together slowly. Vespa guided him through deep inhales and exhales. “Focus on your surroundings, Steel. What do you see?”

“I’m in the infirmary on the Carte Blanche,” his words were strained as he spoke. Stammering, but coherent. With every sentence, he seemed to grow a bit calmer, to where his voice sounded steady, but drained. “You have… labels on the drawers. And… a plant in the corner of the room. Rita glued googly eyes on the pot.”

“Good,” Vespa kept instructing him on his breathing, and making sure his rhythm matched her own. She walked to the sink and turned the faucet on. She filled a small, plastic cup with water and turned it off. “Drink— it’ll help,” she told him. “It’s just water, I promise.”

Juno nodded, took the cup and downed it, feeling his breath even out more, calming down from the sobs. He wiped the tears from his face. “God, I fucking  _ hate  _ crying in front of people,” he admitted. “It feels so… embarrassing. But I guess that’s just a  _ fear of being vulnerable  _ around others or whatever.”

“Who the fuck would believe me if I said I saw you crying anyway?  _ Maybe  _ Rita,” this was an attempt by Vespa to lighten the mood. “How are you faring…? A stupid question, I know.”

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Vespa, I feel like I got hit by a small car. But, hey, I’m not convinced I’m about to be horrifically abused by my mother anymore, so I’ll consider that  _ better,”  _ he was present again, though his muscles were still tense and he was noticeably jumpy. “I hate feeling like this. I… I don’t usually get  _ this  _ bad. I haven’t for a while at least.”

“Something must have triggered you severely,” Vespa’s voice was laced with regret, her face contorted into an awkward expression. “I… I went too far. I— I’m sorry. I  _ get  _ trauma. I should know some shit I say is going to trigger you and I didn’t  _ stop  _ myself. I should be more careful about it. I should be a better medic, especially for someone who has a disorder I  _ also  _ have.”

“Listen. I get it,” Juno sighed. “When something upsets you, or scares you, or throws off your rhythm, it makes you nervous and you get mean when you’re nervous. You lash out,” he took a pause and then another deep breath. “I let the fighting get so bad because losing arguments scares me. I don’t know the consequences. So, I fight anger with more anger and you seem to do the same. And we keep adding more fuel to that stupid fire.”

“It’s a survival tactic,” she acknowledged. “For both of us. I don’t know exactly  _ what  _ you’ve gone through, Steel, but I get that it was… a lot and a lot since you were  _ young _ . It leaks into… aggression.”

“Yeah. It does.”

“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes. “It’s  _ annoying  _ to admit, but I think we’ve got a lot in common. I can… relate to a lot of it. It’s weird that out of everyone here,  _ you’re  _ the one who gets me. I kind of hate it.”

“Yeah, no, that’s weird,” Juno stared at his hands. “Maybe that’s why we fight. We’re too similar and we both fucking hate ourselves so it only makes sense to hate the people like you.”

“Ugh, if you try to psychoanalyze me or my trauma, I’ll stab you,” her tone was joking, and if Juno squint hard enough, he might have been able to see a smile on her face.

“Hey, uh, Vespa? Can you… um… do me a favor? For future arguments?” Juno’s muscles were still stiff, and his eye still kept taking paranoid glances as if he were searching for remnants of his mother’s shadow. “Listen, I can take a lot of shit, okay? My skin is pretty thick. But  _ please  _ don’t call me that again. It’s just… my mother used to call me that and I  _ really  _ don’t want anyone else to. Call me an asshole, a bastard, whatever the fuck you want, just don’t call me a… you know…”

“A monster?” Vespa saw Juno recoil at the word and nodded. “Got it. I got it. I’m so fucking  _ sorry _ , Steel. I got stupidly upset over something that didn’t even matter.”

“I’m also… sorry… for earlier. When I said that you should get a collar if… you know…” his face contorted with genuine guilt as his earlier statements. 

“I would  _ also  _ appreciate it if you didn’t make allusions to me being owned by someone else,” it felt awkward as hell to genuinely be communicating. Neither of them knew how to convey a genuine apology to the other without feeling… weird. “It isn’t  _ fun  _ to have your autonomy stripped from you. I just… I don’t want to be reminded that I’m hardly allowed to be my own person. From one traumatized asshole to another.”

This caused a tiny smile to flicker on Juno’s face. “From one traumatized asshole to another,” he winced as he moved his hand. “Fuck, that  _ hurts _ .”

“The burn? Do you want me to bandage it? It has less risk of infection if you let someone  _ competent _ handle it,” she asked, already expertly grabbed a disinfectant, a burn cream, and a bandage in less than a tenth of the time it would have taken Juno.

“I am competent!” he argued. “But fine. Two hands are easier to use than one.”

“Whatever you say, Steel,” he winced at the sting of the disinfectant before the burn cream soothed it. It feels that before Juno even got to react to the soothing, the bandaging had already been done. “There.”

“You are fast,” he sounded… genuinely impressed. “I take it back when I said you were past your prime.  _ And  _ a lot of other… nasty shit I’ve said.”

“I don’t need the apology tour, Steel,” Vespa rolled her eyes. “But, thanks. I guess. I guess I take back a lot of nasty shit I’ve said. Not  _ all  _ of it, but some.”

“I can deal with some of it. Like I said, thick skin,” he looked at Vespa and sighed. “I… guess I should thank you for helping to ground me.”

“I was doing my job as a medic, Steel. Don’t go thinking we’re friends,” she put on her growl again, but Juno could see the corners of her mouth were upturned and her eyes scrunched up  _ ever  _ so slightly.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he smiled as well and stood up as if he were about to leave, but he looked back at Vespa. “I don’t think I’m really gonna sleep all that much tonight. I’m still a bit antsy and I  _ really  _ don’t feel like having Ransom fret over me. Wanna keep me company for a bit?”

Vespa eyed him suspiciously. “I would have thought you would have liked Ransom worrying about you, given how much you cling to him. But, I’ve got nothing better to do, I guess. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

_ “We do not tell a single soul.  _ I hate imagining their… smug faces if they see us getting along.”

“Oh, I  _ completely  _ agree,” Juno paused. “Huh. Maybe we are eerily alike. I hate that.”

The next morning, Buddy Aurinko almost choked on her morning coffee. Juno and Vespa had been having one of their spats— this time over who had eaten the last of the cereal without telling them— and she had been fully ready to intervene if necessary. Yet, about two minutes into the screaming match,  _ Vespa pulled away.  _

“Fuck it, it’s not a big deal,” she growled. “Just, tell someone when you eat the last of something next time, Steel.”

“I  _ didn’t  _ eat it, but whatever. I’ll make sure I do. Better?” he groaned, but the argument was dropped. Not a single insult had been thrown, much to her complete surprise..

Perhaps she’d ask Vespa what had transpired, but she was afraid that her pointing  _ out  _ the progress would deter it. Something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth or whatever the saying was. She just wanted to enjoy the fact that her family, no matter how dysfunctional each of them were, were starting to understand one another.


End file.
